The dust settled as Yahweh clapped his hands together to knock off any remaining clumps of dirt and soil. He had just finished forming from the dust of the ground the crowning glory of his creation. There, lying lifeless upon the newly created earth, was the first image in Yahweh’s holy garden-temple. Yahweh breathed into the nostrils of this image, and from dirt came life, from the dust of the ground came the first priest, Adam. Adam breathed his first breath and opened his eyes to see the glory of Yahweh’s creation. Yahweh himself welcomed Adam into the newly formed world; he showed him the Garden and all of its wonder. He led him to the middle of the Garden where the two sacred trees stood. He offered him the fruit from the Tree of Life and told him he would have to wait to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Yahweh told Adam that if he ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil before he was ready there would be dire consequences, for he would become a slave to death. 

Yahweh loved Adam with an eternal, covenantal love. To reflect this intense love he had for his image bearer, Yahweh put Adam into a deep sleep, a death sleep, and tore open his side and removed one of his ribs. From his rib, Yahweh formed a bride for Adam — a bride who not only came from his side but would be by his side in all the work Yahweh gave him to do. The bride Yahweh gave to Adam was a bride who would set his heart on fire with the flame of Yahweh. The bride Yahweh gave to Adam was a living symbol of how humanity is to love and submit to Yahweh, her true husband. The marriage bond between Adam and Eve was given to reflect the union God would have with his creation, with all humanity. Adam and Eve loved one another, they loved and served each other, and everything they did reflected Yahweh’s love for his bride.  

However, something went wrong.  Something happened that fractured what Yahweh had put together. Adam disobeyed Yahweh by allowing a dragon to enter the Garden and deceive his bride into eating from the tree God told him not to eat from. Adam watched passively as his beautiful bride took the fruit into her hands and ate it. He waited, and when he saw that eating the fruit didn’t kill her, he took some for himself and ate it as well. At that moment, the dragon’s deception worked. Sin entered the world, and through sin came the curse of death. 

The curse was a relentless force; it wrapped its thorny vines of death around every part of Yahweh’s glorious creation. What Yahweh had declared good now had the venom of the curse running through its veins. This curse was a cruel master, powerful, and left nothing unaffected. Every emotion, every relationship, every part of creation now waged war against that which is good, true, and beautiful.  

Adam and Eve, along with all humanity, was Yahweh’s love, his bride. Yet, the power of the curse severed Adam and Eve from the covenant bond they had with each other and with God. What was once perfect unity became hostility — what was once love became agony and anger. The bride Yahweh loved no longer returned his affection. For the bride had given herself to another. She had allowed herself to be embraced by the arms of a stranger, and her loyalty to her true husband faded. Death now claimed power over his bride, and she began to wither and wilt, no longer clothed in the glorious garments of her Creator, she no longer feasted at the table with her Beloved. Death stripped her bare and abused her, he forced upon her the scars of guilt and shame. The bride was lost, she could no longer even recognize the sound of Yahweh’s voice. She wandered in the howling wasteland of depravity and grew weak as she was fed only scraps at the table of demons.

Like an orphan lost in the wilderness of sin, the bride found her home in the valley of the shadow of death. Sin was her master. Her beauty faded, her desire for her true husband was gone, and her life was incarcerated in the chamber of death. 

Though she had broken covenant with her bridegroom, though she had embraced the arms of another and her unfaithfulness and lusting raged, Yahweh, the true husband, never forsook his vow to her. He was never unfaithful. He never failed to love her. And he refused to leave her chained to the walls of the chamber of death. He would redeem her, and he would fight for her. He would save her from the power of Satan, sin, and death. 

For Yahweh to redeem his bride, he had to go get her. The power of the curse was so strong that the bride could not respond to His call, for her ears were deaf. She could not return to his open arms, for her eyes were blind. And she could not get up and walk to him, for her legs were useless. She could do nothing, for she was dead. She lay in the chamber of death as a corpse. For Yahweh to redeem his bride, he would have to enter the chamber himself. He would have to die. 

The Apostle Paul tells this story in Ephesians Chapter 2:

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

Apart from the limitless power of King Jesus, the true husband, the bride – you and I – are dead in our trespasses and sins. We have no ears to hear, nor eyes to see, nor legs to walk, for we are dead in the chamber of death.

Upon the cross Jesus fought his way into the chamber, he picked up the lifeless body of his bride and in his own body he took her death, he took her curse, her guilt, her shame. He absorbed in himself everything that had enslaved her to death.

He did this because he loved his bride–you and me–with an eternal, unrelenting, never failing, covenantal love. The beautiful part of this story is that though no one had ever escaped the chamber of death before, though no one had ever defeated or conquered the power of the curse, the great King, by the immeasurable power of God, conquered the grave. With his bride in his arms, King Jesus broke down the walls of the chamber of death and was resurrected from the dead!​

Paul goes on,

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages, he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

Jesus Christ has conquered the grave. He has risen, and he has risen with his bride in his arms. The bride is now free, and she sings with one voice as the choir of the redeemed, “O death, where is your victory, O death, where is your sting?” For Jesus has won; he has defeated death in the grave. He now rules from the right hand of the Father and is given honor and glory.

Those who believe are no longer enslaved to the chamber of death but are seated with him in glory, having been raised with him. Those who have not believed in the death-defying good news of the gospel are still enslaved by the chains of death. And now the bride calls out to those who are still in the shackles of sin, “Awake, O Sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” May the power of the resurrection raise us all to follow Christ as new creations, living in the immeasurable greatness of God’s power.

Kyle Lammott is a Theopolis Fellow and is pastor of Exodus Church in Wichita, KS.